Dwyane Wade returns to lineup vs. Knicks

As the Heat was saying all along, Dwyane Wade was a game-time decision.

And the decision was made for him to return to the lineup.

Erik Spoelstra said that he would monitor Wade’s minutes, but don’t expect them to be severely limited.

There’s been a lot made of the Heat winning — 8-1 entering Friday’s game — without him.

There hasn’t been as much made of these records without other top players around the league:

Zach Randolph (Grizzlies): 9-5

Al Horford (Hawks): 6-2

Manu Ginobili (Spurs): 9-5

Derrick Rose (Bulls): 6-1

Chris Paul (Clippers): 3-2

Dirk Nowitzki (Mavs): 2-1

So what’s this about?

“I think it shows a little bit of toughness of those teams,” Erik Spoelstra said. “What this season is about, it’s a no excuse season. You have to be a no-excuse team. And you can can build up excuses every game, about the compacted schedule, about the travel, about the different time zones, all of that. Everybody has a litany of excuses about why you can’t get it done, but some teams are able to withstand it, and it also speaks to the depth. We are able to do it this year because of the depth that we didn’t necessarily have last year. Right when Dwyane got hurt, Mike became available. Which helped. If we didn’t have Mike, we probably would have struggled a little bit more.”